The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
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Andrzej Słowikowski
Abstract
Based on Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the maxim Love is the fulfillment of the law the present article seeks to show how consistent use of Kierkegaard’s terminology can aid in discovering the affirmative vision of Christianity implicitly contained in the philosopher’s religious writings. The starting point is in this case the Christian, spiritual account of love as established by God in every human being which fully manifests itself in the love for one’s neighbor. Only such a love is able to fulfill the law, that is, to make the temporal, human life entirely comprehensible and full of meaning. In order to approach this thesis properly, a differentiation between the possibility of love (law, nature) and the reality of love (love, eternity) is introduced. In effect, it is shown how the concepts of law and love, related to each other dialectically, are able to explain the fundamental relation of the temporal to the eternal in human existence. The pattern as to how this relation of love to the law should be played out is Jesus Christ, as one who, by his love for God, fulfilled the law of God’s love for man. In this act, he created for every human being the possibility of reconciliation with God and established Christianity as a positive religion, one in which there is actually no negative element in existence.
This article was completed thanks to funding by the National Science Centre, Poland; project no 2016/23/D/HS1/02236.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
